Hmm, I’m trying to look at a half full glass at the moment. There is (or there was anyway) a huge travel industry out there whose whole purpose is trying to convince us to follow our dreams, fly here and there, book hotels, cruises (good luck) or even just fly and flop for a fortnight in August. They may be down and out at the moment but those that survive (and it’s in various national interests that industries like these do survive) will very quickly be pushing their wares at the population again.

Our little niche corner of the travel world exists to some extent on the back of mass tourism and they are not going to wait one day longer than they have to before pushing sun and sea and sand at us once more. And it’ll be an easy sell if we’ve been cooped up in self isolation and working from home for months. And it will be months unless the death rates start looking like a WW1 casualty list. When we putter in somewhere on our bikes I doubt very much we’ll be met by locals with pitchforks. Mass tourism will have got there before us and greased the wheels.

Ok, the virus has done for the trip I was planning next month (April) but I’m still cautiously optimistic that my next one in August may be possible in some form - maybe 50:50 at the moment. Maybe I’m not grasping the big picture but we’ve only had this bug for a month and serious society wide adaptations for a week. Let’s see how it develops but I’m not writing everything off yet.

Depends on where you were planning to go. You're based in the UK - there might be a 50:50 chance that you could travel within Western Europe towards the end of the summer. By "could", I mean that you would not be restricted from travel by legislation, border closures, etc.

So far as more exotic destinations - Africa, Central & South America, anything that ends in -stan, etc. are concerned, I think that Des (TomKat) got it right - it will take at least 18 months, and the development and widespread dissemination of a vaccine, before it becomes safe, practical, or even possible for anyone to visit those kind of places.

Michael

Our type of travel will be restricted until our present country and those we wish to visit either have a programme of mass vaccination and the pandemic dies out (but there's no vaccine as yet) or have so many 'recovered' in the population that there's herd immunity and the pandemic dies out naturally. But by then there will be millions of deaths around the world.

The SIR (susceptible-infected-recovered) modelling was developed in the 1920 by Kermack and McKendrick along with the predictions that in an influenza-like pandemic you needed a recovered percentage of 80% to prevent transmission to the remaining 20% susceptibles. The term 'herd immunity' was coined by Captain Major Greenwood (Captain was his rank, Major his first name) in the 1920s to describe this.

I'm currently reading 'The Rules of Contagion' by Adam Kucharski who's a Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and one of the team who's doing the mathematical modelling of likely outcomes for the UK government.

None of what's happening is new or even unexpected. This is the UK government's strategy paper on dealing with a pandemic last updated 2011, https://assets.publishing.service.go.../dh_131040.pdf

__________________
"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

Pretty much agree with everything the OP says...

From the little bit of research I’ve done, I believe, it will depend on 1 of, a combination of or all of, 3 things.
1 - How long it takes for the virus to mutate to a milder state.
2 - How long it takes for a vaccine to be created.
3 - when governments will open their countries up for business.
Obviously, every travellers ‘take’ on any of these situations will differ.

I must say I’m missing the travel reports on the various bike forums I look at.
Stay healthy in body and mind my friends

I’ll put on my lone wolf hat.
I find myself aware of a slightly more optimistic time frame.

Apparently numerous national governments are pushing through stimulus bills for much needed aid that, conveniently, include the partial or complete removal of parliamentary approvals i.e. partial or complete removal of democracy for many months.

IMHO this is classic smoke and mirrors used by governing bodies for 1000’s of years.

The virus, which I know from first hand knowledge, is very real (for me supplementation with Vit D and oregano oil was beneficial)
The pandemic status I’m not so sure - just my opinion.

If I’m anywhere near correct the pandemic status might just fade as quickly as it emerged.

By mid to late April everything could go back to ‘normal’.

YMMV

It would certainly be nice if you are correct, but I doubt very much if we will see a return to 'normality' (assuming you define normality as the ability to travel without restrictions either locally, regionally, or internationally) until fall 2020 at the earliest.

In a best-case situation, some regions or countries will see new infections begin to decline in perhaps 4 weeks time. Once new infections decline in any given area - large or small - the governments of that area will most likely TIGHTEN travel restrictions into that area to prevent introduction of new infections.

I don't see a return to freedom of travel - even local freedom of travel - until either a vaccine is developed and widespread vaccination has been carried out, or until there is strong evidence of herd immunity, and it will require extensive testing to determine if herd immunity exists. Based on what we know today, that implies mid to late 2021.

For a perspective on travel to lesser developed countries, which are typically much slower to relax travel restrictions, consider that many lesser-developed countries will still not let you in today unless you produce evidence of current vaccination for yellow fever - even though 50 years or more have passed since yellow fever was endemic in those countries.

Michael

PS: I'm stuck in Tunisia right now, and doubt if I will be able to get back to Canada before June at the earliest.

Maybe possible within some countries, or certain regions.

At the same time, however, by then other countries/regions will probably be at peak infection rates and so under lockdown, or will have mostly avoided mass infections in which case they will want to keep it that way by restricting or prohibiting travel to some degree, especially by outsiders.

Either way, not exactly "back to normal" if you were hoping to do a long trip. Even if I thought it would be fun to travel through such areas (which I don't), I really don't want any significant risk of getting stuck in a foreign country for months on end like @PanEuropean.

It's great to have a positive spin but I prefer to plan for what I think is coming. A simple spreadsheet extrapolation for the UK predicts the recorded infected cases to top 100,000, perhaps 120,000 by Good Friday. May could be several times higher.

And these are only the cases that have been tested. Anyone who thinks they have the virus and is self-isolating at home isn't included. Also not included is the asymptomatic cases where people think they just have a cold.

Some scientists however suggest the asymptomatic cases are many times higher than the government modellers believe, and if that's the case herd immunity might be achieved and cases start to die down as they have at Wuhan. But without antibody testing of samples of the general population we really don't know.

__________________
"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

Two weeks ago my lone wolf call was for a potential return to normal by mid to late April.

Today, April 15, there is a rumor that Chancellor Merkel has stated that shops of up to 800 square metres in size will open again from this coming Monday onward while just about everything else by May 4th.

Is there anyone from Deutschland listening in that can confirm this for us?



If it is indeed true, then it seems extremely likely this decision will create a domino effect for other countries in the near future.

And, ignition keys may be making their way back into parked adv bikes around the globe shortly after – here’s hope’n